In mechanical, electrical, and chemical processing systems and structures, overall control structure monitoring and/or control has been a goal for many years. With the advent and progress of personal computers (PCs), the automation industry has begun to move toward the use of these more capable and less expensive PCs rather than relying on main frame and mini-computers to perform monitoring and/or control. The newer generation of PCs also allows software product manufacturers to create easier to use products for less advanced users of PCs through use of interfaces to the operating system (such as Windows.TM.) and interfaces for the specific application software packages which many software products now provide to the users.
There are currently several control and monitoring automation packages which allow a user, or users, at different locations on a network, to monitor and/or control structures which can include manufacturing control structures, heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) control structures, security control structures, fire alarm control structures, and even fire control structures to name only a few. Within the automation software packages which control these control structures, points are created that represent physical devices within the different types of control structures. The physical devices are coupled together through electrical and/or optical networks and the networks are interfaced with the PCs.
More specifically, the physical apparatus (manufacturing apparatus or HVAC apparatus) that is being controlled will have physical control and monitoring devices that are physically coupled to a network. The PC or central automation device which is running the control and monitoring software is also coupled to the network. Some control and monitoring software packages allow for one PC to handle multiple networks. The types of networks used vary depending on the network protocols and overall strategy of design being implemented by the designers. Newer operating systems are currently being implemented which not only allow for multiple network connections to one PC, but also allow for multi-tasking of the separate networks simultaneous with one another. Further capabilities include having several PCs on a network (likely at different locations in a control environment) to again facilitate the needs of the physical layout within a control structure.
Returning to the previously mentioned points, these points are usually set up to represent the type of physical device that actually exists in the control environment. For example, a digital point can be set up to represent an on/off type physical device and an analog point can be set up to represent a numerical type device (i.e., temperature or pressure values). Some networks give each of the physical devices an address value in order for the physical device to be located on the network by the control and/or monitoring automation system. However this coupling is performed (either at the controller or at the PC through a dialogue entry screen), the point that is representative of a physical device must be coupled to the actual physical device within the control structure. Thus, the point that is created for each physical device in the control structure represents the device within the software and the software can monitor and control the physical device based on the point (point name) created for the physical device. The user usually sets up the point names for the physical devices such that the point name represents a meaningful identification of the physical device.
Once the points are set up for the physical devices, previous control and monitoring systems provided software capabilities to interface the points within graphical representations of the control structure which the user must set up. With respect to the graphics, the user can select or create objects which are representative of the type of physical devices which exist within the control structure. For example, a user could create an on/off switch from graphical symbols placed into the software by the designers in order for the user to create a graphical switch for monitoring and/or controlling the physical switch within the control structure.
Some larger or more complicated physical devices within a control structure have several analog and/or digital values or states which represent different physical parameters of the overall physical device. Previous monitoring and control software designs required that a separate point manually be created for each physical parameter of a physical device when the physical device had several values and/or states associated with the physical device. The graphical representations created for the different physical devices within a graphic also needed to represent the different values or states of the physical devices along with the individual physical parameters associated with the physical devices that had several values and/or states associated with the physical device. Therefore, before the current invention, users were required to manually link or couple the points created for each physical device and each physical parameter of each physical device to the graphical symbols created for each physical device and the graphical symbols created for each physical parameter (logical parameter) of each physical device, respectively.
Although graphics screens were created that allowed a user to monitor and/or control the numerous points by name, the graphical interfaces provided the most user friendly way to monitor and control the points created for the physical devices. However, in order to monitor and control the physical devices, a user or operator was required to set up the numerous points (several may be required for each physical device) and the numerous graphical representations for each point and physical device as previously mentioned. Thus, setup within the automation system (the dialogue screens) for large control structures could take hundreds of hours to perform.
At least one control/monitoring software provider has previously acknowledged the great amount of time required to setup the points, graphics, and the linking or coupling of the points to the graphical symbols within the system database. This software provider has attempted to address this problem by creating built-in logical para-meters for graphical symbols so that the user did not have to create the logical parameters for each graphical symbol to more easily proceed in entering the requisite linking information. This previous design would then prompt the user to link each logical parameter to a point representing the actual physical parameter of the physical device. More specifically, the software designers, knowing that some devices have several physical parameters associated with the physical device, included the physical device parameters within the graphical symbols that represent the physical device. The representations of the physical parameters are the logical parameters. Thus, when a graphical symbol is created for the physical device, a user did not have to create all of the logical parameters within the graphical symbol. Thus, time is saved in creating the logical parameters, but not in the remaining linking or coupling steps.
Hence, the user would then have to link or couple each individual parameter to a point created for the actual physical parameter within the physical device. Thus, the user did not save any time in creating the links between the points and the pre-entered logical parameters within graphical symbols. The user must still actually enter these items into the PC or other control/monitoring apparatus (user interface).
Furthermore, prior art run-time (real-time) database designs have been created using a global memory technique. Specifically, all of the points, and other dynamic database information, remain together during operation of the application control software. Real-time global databases are less reliable and have less protection barriers than the present invention and, therefore, are more susceptible to corruption and security violations. The present invention is provided to solve these and other problems.